What’s the story?

IT is the only film in which the late, great Hamish Henderson tried his hand at acting and it helped kick-start the career of Tilda Swinton.

It also stars former Scottish makar Liz Lochhead and the late John Berger, a central figure in European culture.

Yet despite winning the Europa Prize in 1989 – the biggest film prize in the world at the time – it’s sad to say that it hasn’t had the attention it has deserved in this country, even though it was filmed on the island of Barra.

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That neglect is being addressed this week at the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, one of Scotland’s newest film festivals.

Not only will the festival screen Play Me Something but it will also feature a question-and-answer session with renowned director Tim Neat, giving the audience a rare opportunity to see the film and quiz the man behind it.

“In any other European country, Play Me Something would be broadcast regularly, debated and held up as a singular, ground-breaking and beautiful piece of film-making,” commented author Chris Dolan a few years ago. “The diverse talents of Neat and Henderson combine with another unique voice, John Berger’s, to produce a work that plays with the form of cinema and delivers a pan-European love story. Why does Scotland so often and so shamefully sideline its own creativity?”

HOW DID HENDERSON GET INVOLVED?

THE film is being shown at Alchemy as a tribute to art critic and Booker prize winner Berger who died on January 2 this year.

Innovative and timeless, it is a homage to the oral tradition and the art of story-telling which becomes an exploration of politics and culture.

Speaking to The National, Neat said Henderson had influenced his approach to many things but, with regard to Play Me Something, he was initially only supposed to act as his translator on a trip to Italy where the film is also set.

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“But he gradually got himself integrated into the film as an actor and, even more importantly, grounded the film in Scotland; he sings the film into being,” remembered Neat, who later wrote the acclaimed biography of Henderson. “Hamish arrives at Barra’s tidal airport driving a horse and cart and mysteriously summons Berger (his story-teller) to entertain passengers stranded by fog in Glasgow and the Hebridean tide.

“They were my two most dear friends; with each I shared creative partnerships of almost 40 years. I think Hamish was one of the great Scots of the 20th century and Berger, a visionary writer of worldwide significance.”

WHAT DOES NEAT SAY?

NEAT believes Berger and Henderson would have been strongly against the West’s current anti-Russia posturing.

“They were both against this American and European capitalist alliance as they were in favour of a brotherhood of states from Lisbon to Moscow,” said Neat. “Our wish to create enemies is so monstrous. We got rid of the Cold War which again was unnecessary, and they both fought against it, but having dissolved that war we created a new enemy out of Russia and Putin and unfortunately Scotland seems to be going along with it.”

Neat is critical of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s comments on Russia and Crimea.

“Nicola Sturgeon says the moving of Crimea into the Russian federation is unacceptable but I think it is totally acceptable. It was peaceful, democratic and historically valid but it is getting a dangerous thumbs down.”

Neat is also contemptuous of Western policy in the Middle East.

“Our efforts to get the Arab Spring to happen has produced absolute hell,” he said.

WHAT ELSE HAS NEAT DONE?

BROUGHT up in Cornwall, Neat has lived most of his adult life in Scotland, lecturing in history of art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee from 1973 until 1988.

In the 1980s he was convener of the Scottish Sculpture Trust, supervising the major George Rickey sculpture exhibition on Clydeside in 1982, the Eduardo Paolozzi exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1984 and the funding and erection of the Hugh MacDiarmid Memorial Sculpture in Langholm in 1985.

In addition he organised a series of national conferences on topics including public art, women’s art and Scottish art.

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In 1997 he was a consultant to the City of Glasgow’s international touring exhibition of work by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

His independent films and documentaries include the award-winning Hallaig about Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean, and The Tree of Liberty which features the songs of Robert Burns sung by Jean Redpath.

He is currently working on his first new film in 24 years, Europa 2017, The Inkblot Test, which is to be premiered at the Image de Ville Festival in Aix-en-Provence at the end of April.

As well as making films, Neat has published 11 books, all exploring key aspects of Scottish culture, and has a keen knowledge and interest in the traditions of Scotland’s travelling people and the singers, story-tellers and crofters of the Highlands.

WHEN IS THE FILM ON?

PLAY Me Something is being screened on Saturday (March 4) at Alchemy, which begins tomorrow in Hawick in the Scottish Borders.

This year the festival features more than 120 films including 24 world premieres, 12 moving image installations around the town, expanded cinema performances and a filmmaker symposium.

Highlights include the Scottish premiere of Rachel Maclean’s It’s What’s Inside That Counts. Maclean, the artist selected to represent Scotland at the 2017 Venice Biennale, will be present at the screening for a question-and-answer session.

In perhaps the world’s first ever surrealist experimental opera-musical, the UK premiere of Warsaw-based Karolina Bregula’s The Tower follows the fate of a group of well-meaning community activists who decide that the solution to their social problems lies in building an enormous tower of sugar. With music by Glasgow based Ela Orleans, their utopian dreams inevitably lead toward more dystopian realities.

For the closing film, Alchemy hosts the European premiere of Incident Reports by Canadian auteur Mike Hoolboom.

“Alchemy has become one of Europe’s leading international festivals of experimental film and artists’ moving image,” said creative director Richard Ashrowan. “The festival has grown enormously, attracting 1,000 international film submissions this year, and will be attended by more than 50 filmmakers from around the globe.

“We are especially delighted to be showing around 20 films made by the Moving Image Makers Collective, our thriving home-grown collective of Borders-based filmmakers.”

For more details go to alchemyfilmfestival.org.uk.